Category: Inventors/ or firsts

July 20 2017- Jesse L. Jackson

GM – FBF – Today, I want to share with you a story about a man who is a civil rights Icon and also the first Black Man to run for President of the United States.

Remember – “At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division”. Jesse Jackson

Today in our History July 20, 2017 – Jackson wins another award.

Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr. received the highest honor presented by the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) at its annual convention in Norfolk, Virginia.

The legendary activist received the NNPA Lifetime Legacy Award for his decades of service as one of the country’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures.

After a video tribute that chronicled Jackson’s life and a surprise solo performance of “Hero,” by Jackson favorite, Audrey DuBois Harris, the iconic preacher accepted the award from NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., and NNPA Chairman Dorothy R. Leavell.

“I’m not easy to surprise,” Jackson told the crowd, which gave him a standing ovation as he headed to the podium to accept the honor.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, Jackson has been called the “Conscience of the Nation,” and “The Great Unifier,” challenging America to be inclusive and to establish just and humane priorities for the benefit of all.

Born in 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson began his theological studies at Chicago Theological Seminary, but deferred his studies when he began working full time in the Civil Rights Movement alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“This honor takes on a special meaning for me because my first job was selling the ‘Norfolk Journal and Guide’ newspaper and then the ‘Baltimore AFRO-American’ and then the ‘Pittsburgh Courier,’” Jackson said of the iconic Black-owned newspapers. “We couldn’t see the other side of Jackie Robinson. We couldn’t see the other side of Sugar Ray Robinson,” he said, noting that the Black Press told the full stories of those sports heroes.

He reminisced about the fateful night in Memphis in 1968 when an assassin’s bullet cut down King.

“I was with Dr. King on that chilly night in Memphis and I went to the phone to talk to Mrs. King. I couldn’t really talk,” he said. “I told her, ‘I think Dr. King was shot in the shoulder,’ even though I knew he was shot in the neck. I just couldn’t say it.”

During the ceremony, Leavell and Chavis said Jackson has carried King’s legacy well.

“We still need him,” Leavell said of Jackson.

Chavis called Jackson a “long-distance runner who’s made a difference not only in this country, but all over the world.”

Leavell recalled Jackson’s historic run for the presidency in 1984 in a campaign that registered more than 1 million new voters and catapulting Democrats in their successful effort to regain control of the Senate.

Four years later, Jackson ran again, this time registering more than 2 million new voters and earning 7 million popular votes.

“It’s a wonder that my neighbors didn’t call the police the night he gave that iconic speech at the Democratic National Convention [in 1984],” said Leavell, whom Jackson presided over her wedding ceremony more than 40 years ago. “There was so much emotion that night that I felt, they told me that I could be anything that I wanted to be,” Leavell said, pointing to Jackson and photographers flocked to take pictures of the civil rights leader while holding his coveted NNPA award.

Dubois Harris said Jackson is a “King of a man,” and, although she had been under the weather all week, nothing would stop her from attending Jackson’s big night, she said.

“We stand on his shoulders,” Dubois Harris said. “He continues to be a pioneer of civil rights and humanity and he’s all that’s good and right in the world.”

Over decades, Jackson has earned the respect and trust of presidents and dignitaries and his Rainbow PUSH organization has aided countless Black and minority families with various struggles.

But his work not only has helped the poor or minorities.

In 1984, Jackson secured the release of captured Navy Lt. Robert Goodman from Syria, and he also help shepherd the release of 48 Cuban and Cuban-American prisoners in Cuba.

Jackson was the first American to bring home citizens from the United Kingdom, France, and other countries who were held as human shields by Saddam Hussein in Kuwait and Iraq in 1990.

He also negotiated the release of U.S. soldiers held hostage in Kosovo and, in 2000, Jackson helped negotiate the release of four journalists working on a documentary for Britain’s Channel 4 network who were held in Liberia.

Jackson said President Trump should and can be defeated, with the aid of the Black Press, who this year has led a drive to register 5 million new African-American voters.

“The first time I saw an image of Black achievement was in the Black Press,” Jackson said. “Today, the Black Press is more important than ever. This is the season of ‘Fake News,’ but we need the truth now more than ever.” Research more about Jesse Jackson and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

15Jul

July 15 1864- Maggie Lena

GM – FBF – Today, I want to share with you a story of a great
black woman who as an activist and business woman who rose to be a role model for her community and the Nation. Enjoy!

Remember – “Let us put our moneys together; let us use our moneys; let us put our money out at usury among ourselves, and reap the benefit ourselves … Let us have a bank that will take the nickels and turn them into dollars.” – Maggie Lena Walker

Today in our History – July 15,1864 – the first woman—white or black—to establish and become president of a bank in the United States is born.

Maggie Lena Walker was grand secretary of the Independent Order of St. Luke, an organization dedicated to the social and financial advancement of African Americans.

Maggie Lena Walker was born on July 15, 1864, in Richmond, Virginia. She attended school and graduated in 1883, having been trained as a teacher. She married a brick contractor in 1886 and left her teaching job, at which point she became more active within the Independent Order of St. Luke, an an organization dedicated to the social and financial advancement of African Americans. In 1899, Maggie Walker became grand secretary of the organization—a position that she would hold for the rest of her life. During her tenure, she founded the organization’s newspaper, and opened a highly successful bank and a department store. By the time she died, on December 15, 1934, Walker had turned the nearly bankrupt organization into a profitable and effective one.

Maggie Lena Walker was born Maggie Lena Draper on July 15, 1864, in Richmond Virginia. Her mother, Elizabeth Draper, was a former slave and the assistant cook for Elizabeth Van Lew, an abolitionist on whose estate Maggie was born. Maggie’s biological father was Eccles Cuthbert, an Irish American who had met Elizabeth on the Van Lew estate. The two were never married, and shortly after Maggie’s birth, Elizabeth married William Mitchell, the butler of the estate. In 1870, the Mitchells had a child, Maggie’s half-brother Johnnie.

Soon thereafter, William obtained a job as the headwaiter at the St. Charles Hotel in Richmond, and the family moved away from the estate and into a small house of their own. Tragedy struck, however, when in 1876 William was found drowned in the river. His death was ruled a suicide by police, though Elizabeth maintained that he had been murdered. William’s death left Elizabeth and her children in poverty. To make ends meet, Elizabeth began a laundry business, with which Maggie assisted by delivering clean laundry to their white patrons. It was during this time that she first developed an awareness of the gap between the quality of life for whites and blacks in the United States—a gap that she would soon devote her life to narrowing.

In her teens, Maggie attended the Lancaster School and, later, the Richmond Colored Normal School, both institutions dedicated to the education of African Americans. While attending the latter, she also joined the Independent Order of St. Luke, a fraternal organization dedicated to the advancement of African Americans in both financial and social standing.

Maggie graduated in 1883, having completed her training as a teacher. She returned to the Lancaster School to teach and remained there until 1886, when she married Armstead Walker Jr., a brick contractor, and was forced to leave her job, due to the school’s policy against married teachers. Over the next decade, Maggie Walker’s life was split between family and her work for the Order of St. Luke. In 1890, she gave birth to her first son, Russell, and in 1893, Armstead, who died while still an infant.

In 1895, Walker, who had been rising quickly through the ranks of the Order, became grand deputy matron. She also established a youth arm of the order to inspire social consciousness in young African Americans. In 1897, Walker gave birth to another son, Melvin, and two years later, became the Order of St. Luke’s grand secretary.

When Maggie Walker assumed control of the Order of St. Luke, the organization was on the verge of bankruptcy. In a speech she gave in 1901, she outlined her plans to save it, and in the coming years, she would follow through on each item she had described. In 1902, Walker founded the St. Luke Herald to carry news of the Order of St. Luke to local chapters and to help with its educational work. The following year, she opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank (of which she would be remain president until 1929). In 1905, she opened the St. Luke Emporium, a department store that offered African-American women opportunities for work and gave the black community access to cheaper goods.

In the midst of all of these accomplishments, however, tragedy visited Maggie Walker once more: In 1915, Russell Walker, mistaking his father for an intruder, shot and killed him as he was returning home one night. Russell was tried for murder, but was found innocent. Also around this time, Maggie Walker developed diabetes. Yet this did not deter her in her work.

In 1921, Walker ran for the seat of superintendent of public instruction on the Republican ticket, though she was defeated along with the other black Republican candidates. Her work for the Order of St. Luke, however, was meeting with much more favorable results. By 1924, under Maggie Walker’s continued leadership, the bank served a membership of more than 50,000 in 1,500 local chapters. Additionally, she managed to keep the bank alive during the Great Depression, despite the fact that many were failing, by merging it with two other banks in 1929.

For the last few years of her life, Maggie Walker was confined to a wheelchair and continued to suffer from her diabetic condition, and on December 15, 1934, at age 70, she died from complications of the disease. She was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Richmond. In 1979, her home on East Leigh Street, in the Jackson Ward neighborhood of Richmond, known as the “Harlem of the South,” was purchased by the National Parks Service and became a National Historic Site. Research more about Black women in finance and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

14Jul

July 14 2014- Alice Coachmen

GM – FBF – Today, I want to share with you one of the saddest sports stories in Track and Field that I have ever heard. I thought that sprinter Jesse Owens racing a horse at Monmouth, NJ Racetrack and other tracks around the states just to feed his family was sad but go anyplace and people will tell you Wilma Rudolph was the first black woman to win a medal — it’s not true, Rudolph’s three gold medals in the sprints at the Rome Olympics in 1960, was 12 years later than Coachman but Rudolph was on television. Alice Coachman was not. Enjoy!

Remember – “I had accomplished what I wanted to do, It was time for me to start looking for a husband. That was the climax. I won the gold medal. I proved to my mother, my father, my coach and everybody else that I had gone to the end of my rope.” – Alice Coachman

Today in our History – July 14, 2014 – THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO WIN A GOLD MEDAL AT AN OLYMPICS DIES!

Alice Coachman became the first African American woman from any country to win an Olympic Gold Medal when she competed at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, UK.

Born November 9, 1923, in Albany, Georgia, to Evelyn and Fred Coachman, Alice was the fifth of ten children. As an athletic child of the Jim Crow South, who was denied access to regular training facilities, Coachman trained by running on dirt roads and creating her own hurdles to practice jumping.
Even though Alice Coachman parents did not support her interest in athletics, she was encouraged by Cora Bailey, her fifth grade teacher at Monroe Street Elementary School, and her aunt, Carrie Spry, to develop her talents.

After demonstrating her skills on the track at Madison High School, Tuskegee Institute offered sixteen-year-old Coachman a scholarship to attend its high school program. She competed on and against all-black teams throughout the segregated South.

In 1943, Coachman entered the Tuskegee Institute college division to study dressmaking. She played on the basketball team and ran track-and-field, where she won four national championships for events in sprinting and high jumping. Coachman completed a degree in dressmaking in 1946. In 1947, Coachman enrolled in Albany State College (now University) to continue her education. Coachman completed a B.S. degree in Home Economics with a minor in science at Albany State College in 1949 and became teacher and track-and-field instructor.

During World War II, the Olympic committee cancelled the 1940 and 1944 games. Alice Coachman’s first Olympic opportunity came in 1948 in London, when she was twenty-four. On August 8, 1948, Alice Coachman leapt 5 feet 6 1/8 inches to set a new Olympic record and win a gold medal for the high jump.

Coachman (who was later known as Alice Coachman Davis) received her medal from King George VI. She was invited aboard a British Royal yacht, she was congratulated by President Harry S. Truman at the White House, and Count Basie gave a party for her. She was lauded in a motorcade that wound its way through Georgia from Atlanta to her hometown, Albany.

But she had returned to a segregated South. Blacks and whites were seated separately in the Albany city auditorium when she was honored there. The mayor sat on the stage with her but would not shake her hand, and she had to leave by a side door.

As a youngster in Albany, she had run and jumped barefoot, using ropes and sticks for makeshift high jumps. She had not been allowed to train at athletic fields with whites.

“You had to run up and down the red roads and the dirt roads,” Coachman told The Kansas City Star. “You went out there in the fields, where there was a lot of grass and no track. No nothing.”

At a time when there were few high-profile black athletes beyond Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis, Coachman became a pioneer. She led the way for female African-American Olympic track stars like Wilma Rudolph, Evelyn Ashford, Florence Griffith Joyner and Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

“I made a difference among the blacks, being one of the leaders,” she told The New York Times in 1996. “If I had gone to the Games and failed, there wouldn’t be anyone to follow in my footsteps. It encouraged the rest of the women to work harder and fight harder.”

During her career, she won thirty-four national titles, ten for the high jump in consecutive years. Alice Coachman was inducted into nine halls of fame including the National Track-and-Field Hall of Fame (1975) and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame (2004). Coachman became the first black woman to endorse an international product when Coca-Cola signed her as a spokesperson in 1952.

Coachman married Frank A. Davis and is the mother of two children. She taught for the later part of her life at South Carolina State College, Albany State University and the Job Corps. The Alice Coachman Elementary School in Albany, Georgia is named in her honor.

In 1994, she founded the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation to provide assistance to young athletes and former Olympic competitors. Coachman died in Albany, Georgia on July 14, 2014. She was 90.

Albany is located in Southwest Georgia closer to the Florida border and further away from the capitol city of Atlanta, GA where Dr. Martin L. King – Lost “The Albany Movement ” a desegregation campaign formed on November 17, 1961. Almost all of Albany’s public facilities remained segregated after King’s departure, making the Albany Movement one of the few failures among the 1960s civil rights campaigns. Research more about black female track athletes and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

11Jul

July 11 2000- Vashti Murphy McKenzie

GM – FBF – Today, I want to tell you about a great American who was the first female bishop of the AME Church. Enjoy!

Remember – ” Doing God’s work and lifting people up is the way I show Love. – Vashti Murphy McKenzie

Today in our History – On July 11, 2000, journalist and clergywoman Vashti Murphy McKenzie became the first female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. In 2005 she became the denomination’s first woman to serve as Titular Head. Her commitment to community development is evident in her work with urban American cities as well as in AIDS-stricken Africa.

Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie was born on May 28, 1947 into a prominent Baltimore, Maryland family. Her great-grandfather John Henry Murphy, Sr. founded the Afro-American Newspaper in 1892, and her grandmother Vashti Turly Murphy was a founding member of Delta Sigma Theta, an African American college sorority. Bishop McKenzie graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland in 1978. She later earned a master’s of divinity from Howard University and a doctor of ministry from United Theological Seminary.

Bishop McKenzie began her career in journalism, working as a radio and television broadcaster and newspaper reporter before pursuing studies in divinity. After being ordained in 1984, she served as pastor for small congregations before being assigned in 1990 to the Payne Memorial AME Church in Baltimore’s inner city. Under her direction, the congregation grew from 300 to 1,700 members. She initiated community development projects including job service programs and a senior care center. Ten years later, at its annual convention in Cincinnati, the AME Church elected her to be its first female bishop, presiding over the 18th Episcopal District in southeast Africa. In that capacity she was responsible for several congregations in Africa comprised of nearly 10,000 people. Her project initiatives again centered on community development, encouraging entrepreneurial business programs and building mission housing. She also expanded services to homeless children and those infected with HIV/AIDS.

In 2005 she became the first woman to serve as Titular Head of the AME Church, overseeing the Council of Bishops as its president. She currently presides over the 13th Episcopal District.

She is the author of three books and is married to Stan McKenzie, a former professional basketball player who now works alongside of his wife as Episcopal Supervisor in her district. They have three children. McKenzie, Vashti. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

10Jul

July 10 1989- David Norman Dinkins

GM – FBF – This morning I want to tell you a story about a native of Trenton, N.J. who goes on to be the Mayor of “The Big Apple” – Enjoy!

Remember – “I was born and raised in Trenton, N.J. then my mother came here to New York. She and my grandmother were domestics, cooking, cleaning for other people.” – Mayor David Dinkins (NYC)

Today in our History – July 10, 1989 – New York City Annouces First Black Mayor. He is from Trenton, N.J.

Dinkins, David N. (1927- ) – In 1989, David N. Dinkins defeated his challenger, former federal prosecutor Rudolph (Rudy) Giuliani, to become the first African American mayor of New York City.

David Norman Dinkins was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1927. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Marine Corps at 18 and served briefly in World War II. After the war, he attended Howard University, graduating with a B.A. in Mathematics in 1950. Dinkins moved to New York City and received a law degree from the Brooklyn Law School in 1956. Dinkins is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

David Dinkins’s political career began when he joined the Carver Club headed by a charismatic politician, J. Raymond Jones who was known as the Harlem Fox. Dinkins befriended three up and coming black New York politicians; Charles Rangel, Basil Paterson, Sr., and Percy Sutton. In 1965, Dinkins won his first electoral office, a seat in the New York State Assembly. Shortly afterwards Dinkins was offered the position of deputy mayor of New York by then Mayor Abraham Beam. Dinkins could not accept the post when it was revealed he had not paid income taxes for the past four years.

Dinkins did manage to secure the position of city clerk for New York which he held from 1975 to 1985. On his third run for the office, Dinkins was elected Manhattan’s Borough President in 1985. In 1989, Dinkins decided to run for Mayor of New York. He surprised political observers by defeating three time incumbent Mayor Ed Koch in the Democratic primaries. Despite facing a strong Republican challenger in former federal prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani, Dinkins narrowly won the mayor’s race.

Dinkins presided over a city well known for its municipal crises. His term, however, was particularly turbulent because an unprecedented crack epidemic and the resulting drug wars swept through the city. Especially affected were the impoverished African American and Puerto Rican neighborhoods that formed the core of Dinkins’s constituency. The crack epidemic also spawned a crime wave that exacerbated racial tensions.

Two episodes particularly tested the Mayor’s ability to be an effective municipal leader. In 1989, shortly after Dinkins took office, a young white woman was allegedly raped and brutalized by marauding black youth in Central Park. Months later a black teenager was murdered when he ventured into a white ethnic Brooklyn neighborhood. In both episodes Dinkins calmed racial tensions and earned an image as a peacemaker. Although Dinkins presided over a decrease in crime in the city, balanced the city budget by turning a $1.8 billion dollar deficit into a $200 million surplus, and maintained racial peace after the Rodney King verdict sparked rioting in a number of cities across the nation, he never completely shed his image as an ineffective political leader. The 1993 election proved a political rematch of 1989. This time, however, Rudolph Giuliani narrowly defeated David Dinkins for the Mayor’s office.

Former Mayor Dinkins accepted a professorship at Columbia University’s Center for Urban Research and Policy in 1994. Although he has endorsed various political candidates and clashed with fellow New Yorker and Presidential aspirant Al Shapton, Dinkins has not sought elective office. Research more about African – American Mayors in other cities across American. Make it a champion day!

09Jul

July 9 2018- James Baskett

GM – FBF – Today, I would like to remind you that in Hollywood, actors of color over the last 25 years have been winning a lot more Academy Awards. Do you know who was the first Black Man to receive one? Enjoy!

Remember – ” Many people of my my race called me all kinds of bad names for the work that I was doing in Hollywood. That hurts because I only wanted to act and find/keep work. – James Baskett

Today in our History – July 9, 2018 –

James Baskett, the first male African American to win an Academy Award, was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on February 16, 1904. After high school Baskett planned to study pharmacy, but after he was offered a small part in a show in Chicago, Illinois his career path was forever changed. Baskett continued to take small roles in Chicago plays for a time, but later he went to New York City, New York and joined the Lafayette Players Stock Company, where he stayed for many years.

Baskett first appeared on film in a feature role in Harlem is Heaven, and continued on in such films as Policy Man and Straight to Heaven. Baskett was not confined to film and theater; he also played Gabby Gibson, a slick-talking lawyer on the popular radio program Amos ‘n’ Andy.

Baskett is best remembered for his portrayal of Uncle Remus in Disney’s 1946 picture Song of the South. Baskett had actually only tested earlier for a minor role, but Disney remembered him and he was asked play as Uncle Remus. In 1947, after some lobbying by popular Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, Baskett was awarded a special Academy Award “for his able and heartwarming characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and storyteller to the children of the world.” Yet, although the film was praised by the academy, Baskett and Disney both met with heavy criticism from many in the African American community who felt that the film was rife with racist undertones and that it encouraged harmful stereotypes. The debate over Song of the South continues, and due to this Disney has refused to release the film on home video in the United States. James Baskett passed away on July 9, 1948. Research more about Black Actors and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

08Jul

July 8 1895- John Lee Love

GM – FBF – Today, let me share with you a stroy of a Black Inventor, who had two great Ideas that are still used today. One by mason’s or construction workers for finishing walls and the other by Elementary school students. Enjoy!

Remember – ” I love coming up with Ideas that will make a project be done more safely, quicker and cheeper” – John Lee Love

Today in our History – July 8, 1895 –

Black Inventor John Lee Love – Invents The Plasterer’s Hawk –

John Lee Love – Inventor (d. 1931)

John Lee Love was a carpenter in Fall River, Massachusetts, who invented a couple of devices. In 1895, Lee patented a lightweight plasterer’s hawk. In 1897, he patented a portable pencil sharpener known as the “Love Sharpener.” Lee died in a car and train collision in North Carolina on December 26, 1931.

Little is known about the life of John Lee Love, the inventor of the portable pencil sharpener. It is speculated that he was born sometime during the reconstruction period – between 1865-1877. Love later worked as a carpenter in the community of Fall River, Massachusetts.

On July 8,1895, he created and patented an improved plasterer’s hawk, used by plasterers and masons. Love’s design featured a detachable handle and a foldable aluminum board, making it portable and lightweight.

A plasterer’s hawk – also known as a hand board – is a small, square, hand-held surface on which a load of plaster or mortar is carried. It is used in tasks such as the skimming (plastering) of walls or pointing of brickwork (filling gaps between bricks on the face of a wall). It has a straight handle underneath for carrying.

It is thought that the name “hawk” derives from the way that the object sits – like a hawker’s bird – on the arm, and also from the “assistant” role that they play – like the birds – in helping their owner do their job.

A hawk is often used alongside a larger mixing (or spot) board, onto which building compounds, such as plaster, are poured. These boards are much larger and hold the bulk of the mixture throughout the job. Mixing boards are often mounted on a stand or trestle, to make them easier to use.

Unlike a mixing board, a plasterer’s hawk is small enough to carry around the room as you work and you can hold it close to the wall being plastered, preventing plaster spillage from the trowel. It is repeatedly loaded from the main board throughout the job. In pointing, again, the hawk is loaded with small quantities of mortar from the mixing board and is carried close to the wall.

What is the difference between a hawk and a float?
Hawks are different from plasterer’s floats, which are small rectangular boards with a curved handle underneath. These are smoothed over freshly-applied plaster when it has firmed up, to level out irregularities in the surface.

Love’s second invention was his most successful, the pencil sharpener even though both are still being used today in 2018.Love hired lawyers from New York and Boston firms to represent him while applying for both of his patents.

Love died along with nine other passengers on December 26, 1931, when the car they were riding in collided with a train near Charlotte, North Carolina. Reports from the time indicate that he was not married. Research more about Black Inventors and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

05Jul

July 5 1975- Upset Jimmy Conners in the Wimbledon Finals

GM – FBF – Today, let me tell you the story of the first Black major tennis pro, who had to be respected because hw was #1 ranked in the world. Using his platform to help support human rights issues at the time. Enjoy!

Remember – ” If I was not able to play tennis, I would still speak out on the problems around the world that are effecting our people” – Arthur Ashe

Today in our History – June 5, 1975 – upset Jimmy Connors in the Wimbledon finals.

Arthur Ashe is the first African American to win the men’s singles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and the first African-American man to be ranked No. 1 in the world.

Born on July 10, 1943, in Richmond, Virginia, Arthur Ashe became the first, and is still the only, African-American male tennis player to win the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. He is also the first African-American man to be ranked as the No. 1 tennis player in the world. Always an activist, when Ashe learned that he had contracted AIDS via a blood transfusion, he turned his efforts to raising awareness about the disease, before finally succumbing to it on February 6, 1993.

In 1975 Ashe registered another upset by beating Jimmy Connors in the Wimbledon finals, marking another pioneering achievement within the African-American community — becoming the first African-American male player to win Wimbledon — which, like his U.S. Open victory, remains unmatched. That same year (1975), Ashe became the first African-American man to be ranked No. 1 in the world. Ten years later, in 1985, he would become the first African-American man to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

For Ashe, however, success also brought opportunity and responsibility. He didn’t relish his status as the sole black star in a game dominated by white players, but he didn’t run away from it either. With his unique pulpit, he pushed to create inner city tennis programs for youth; helped found the Association of Men’s Tennis Professionals; and spoke out against apartheid in South Africa — even going so far as to successfully lobby for a visa so he could visit and play tennis there.

Ashe’s causes were shaped by both his own personal story and his health. In 1979 he retired from competition after suffering a heart attack, and wrote a history of African-American athletes: A Hard Road to Glory (three volumes, published in 1988). He also served as national campaign chairman of the American Heart Association.Ashe was plagued with health issues over the last 14 years of his life. After undergoing a quadruple bypass operation in 1979, he had a second bypass operation in 1983. In 1988 he underwent emergency brain surgery after experiencing paralysis of his right arm. A biopsy taken during a hospital stay revealed that Ashe had AIDS. Doctors soon discovered that Ashe had contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from a transfusion of blood that he was given during his second heart operation.

In his first tournament, Ashe reached the junior national championships. Driven to excel, he eventually moved to St. Louis to work closely with another coach, winning the junior national title in 1960 and again in 1961. Ranked the fifth best junior player in the country, Ashe accepted a scholarship at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he graduated with a degree in business administration.

In addition to his pioneering tennis career, Ashe is remembered as an inspirational figure. He once said: “True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.” He also offered words about achieving success: “One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

04Jul

July 4 1910- John Arthur Johnson

GM – FBF – Today is the 242th birthday of this grand experiment, where the people of 12 of the 13 colonies told the realm of England that they wanted their freedom. (Georgia did not attend the first Continental Congress because of fighting conflict with the Creek Indian. They did send represenatives to the second Congress. George Walton being one and my baby girl attends the George Walton Academy in Walton County at the county seat of Monroe, GA. Also, 124 years later “The Fight of the Century” would place heaveyweight boxer Jack Johson on a road to disaster. Enjoy!

Remember – “I’m Jack Johnson. Heavyweight champion of the world. I’m black. They never let me forget it. I’m black all right! I’ll never let them forget it! – John Arthur Johnson (Jack Johnson) – World Heavyweight Champion

Today in our History – July 4,1910 – ” The Fight of the Century”

John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946), nicknamed the Galveston Giant, was an American boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915). Among the period’s most dominant champions, Johnson remains a boxing legend, with his 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries dubbed the “fight of the century”. According to filmmaker Ken Burns, “for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African-American on Earth”. Transcending boxing, he became part of the culture and the history of racism in America.

The fight took place on July 4, 1910, in front of 20,000 people, at a ring built just for the occasion in downtown Reno, Nevada. Jeffries proved unable to impose his will on the younger champion and Johnson dominated the fight. By the 15th round, after Jeffries had been knocked down twice for the first time in his career, Jeffries’ corner threw in the towel to end the fight and prevent Jeffries from having a knockout on his record. Johnson later remarked he knew the fight was over in the 4th round when he landed an uppercut and saw the look on Jeffries face, stating, “I knew what that look meant. The old ship was sinking.” Afterwards, Jeffries was humbled by the loss and what he’d seen of Johnson in their match. “I could never have whipped Johnson at my best”, Jeffries said. “I couldn’t have hit him. No, I couldn’t have reached him in 1,000 years.”

The “Fight of the Century” earned Johnson $65,000 and silenced the critics, who had belittled Johnson’s previous victory over Tommy Burns as “empty”, claiming that Burns was a false champion since Jeffries had retired undefeated. John L. Sullivan commented after the fight that Johnson won deservedly, fairly, and convincingly.

Johnson was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1954, and is on the roster of both the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame. In 2005, the United States National Film Preservation Board deemed the film of the 1910 Johnson-Jeffries fight “historically significant” and put it in the National Film Registry.

During his boxing career, Jack Johnson fought 114 fights, winning 80 matches, 45 by knockouts.

Johnson’s skill as a fighter and the money that it brought made it impossible for him to be ignored by the establishment. In the short term, the boxing world reacted against Johnson’s legacy. But Johnson foreshadowed one of the most famous boxers of all time, Muhammad Ali. In fact, Ali often spoke of how he was influenced by Jack Johnson. Ali identified with Johnson because he felt America ostracized him in the same manner because of his opposition to the Vietnam War and affiliation with the Nation of Islam. Research more about Jack Johnson and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

28Jun

June 28 1900- Harriet E. Wilson

GM – FBF – I know that most of us have read or listened to an Ida B. Wells speach but did you know that their was a black lady auther long before her? Today, I will share that story with you. Enjoy!

Remember – “I wrote the book to tell my story and what I went through growing up in this new land. Now they want me to go to different cities speaking about it. I don’t do that good. I hear tell that a young negro girl is doing that, I hope one day I can listen to her speak about lynchings and civil rights. They say she is really good. God bless that child”

Today in our History – June 28, 1900 – Harriet E. Wilson (The first Black female to publish an article in the United States dies)

Harriet E. Wilson is considered the first female African-American novelist, as well as the first African American of any gender to publish a novel on the North American continent. Her novel Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black was published anonymously in 1859 in Boston, Massachusetts; and sunk into literary obscurity until 1983 when Henry Louis Gates republished the novel and documented it as the first African-American novel published in the United States.

The novel’s discovery forced literary historians to restructure the chronology of Black literature, displacing William Wells Brown from his previously accepted position as the first African American novelist. His Clotel: or, The President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States was originally published in London in 1853, but did not appear in the United States until 1864, when it was published in Boston as Clotelle: A Tale of the Southern States. Also, the novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts, published for the first time in 2002, may have been written before Wilson’s book,
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Born Harriet E. “Hattie” Adams in Milford, New Hampshire, Wilson was the mixed-race daughter of Margaret Ann (or Adams) Smith, a washerwoman of Irish ancestry, and Joshua Green, an African-American “hooper of barrels.” After her father died when she was young, her mother abandoned her at the farm of Nehemiah Hayward Jr., a well-to-do Milford farmer “connected to the Hutchinson Family Singers”. Wilson’s mother died aged twenty-seven in Boston, after a violent and intoxicated quarrel with her Black partner. As an orphan, Wilson was bound by the courts as an indentured servant to the Hayward family until the age of 18. They overworked her mercilessly and ruined her health.

Wilson struggled to make a living after gaining her freedom. She married twice and her only son died at age seven in the poor house, where she had placed him while trying to survive as a widow.

On October 6, 1851, Wilson married Thomas Wilson in Milford. Their son, George Mason Wilson, was likely born in May or June of 1852. George, who was probably their first and only child was born at Goffstown, New Hampshire. As Gates explained in his introduction to the second edition of Our Nig, “One of the letters appended to Our Nig states that, abandoned by her husband, the author…was forced…to go to the ‘County House,’ where she gave birth to a child.”After the death of her husband, Wilson married a French apothecary named John Gallatin Robinson, who was 18 years her junior.
Wilson wrote only one novel, Our Nig. On August 18, 1859, she copyrighted it, and deposited a copy of the novel in the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.

On September 5, 1859, the novel was published anonymously by George C. Rand and Avery, a publishing firm in Boston. She wrote her novel in an attempt to raise enough money to be reunited with her child. In her preface, Wilson wrote, “In offering to the public the following pages, the writer confesses her inability to minister to the refined and cultivated, the pleasure supplied by abler pens. It is not for such these crude narrations appear. Deserted by kindred, disabled by failing health, I am forced to some experiment which shall aid me in maintaining myself and child without extinguishing this feeble life.” Toward that end, Wilson asked, “I sincerely appeal to my colored brethren universally for patronage, hoping that they will not condemn this attempt of their sister to be erudite, but rally around me a faithful band of supporters and defenders.”
Unfortunately, the hoped-for patronage did not materialize, and tragically, George died of fever less than six months after her novel was published.

By the 1860s, Wilson had come to be known as “the colored medium” and was available for seances and readings. She was associated with the Spiritualist church and was listed in the Banner of Light as a trance reader and lecturer. A newspaper reported her lecturing on the topic throughout New England, including the towns of Lynn, Stoughton, Stoneham, and Worcester, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut. One report counts an audience of 2,500 at one of these gatherings. Wilson also delivered lectures on labor reform, and children’s education. Although the texts of her talks have not survived, newspaper reports imply that she often spoke about her life experiences.

When she was not pursuing Spiritualistic activities, Wilson was employed as a nurse and healer (“clairvoyant physician”). For nearly 20 years from 1879 to 1897, she was the housekeeper of a boarding house in a two-story dwelling at 15 Village Street (near the present corner of Dover [now East Berkeley Street] and Tremont Streets in the South End.) She rented out rooms, collected rents and provided basic maintenance.

Despite Wilson’s active and fruitful life after Our Nig, there is no evidence that she ever wrote anything else for publication.
On June 28, 1900, Hattie E. Wilson died in the Quincy Hospital in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was buried in the Cobb family plot in that town’s Mount Wollaston Cemetery. Her plot number is listed as 1337, “old section.” Reserch more about woman authers and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!.